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Month: March 2008

Well, here’s our chickens 2 weeks later. They have more than doubled in size… I’d almost say they have tripled in size! It’ll still be a while til they actually go out to their hen house in our barn, but I sure can’t wait to see them in there. I’m really looking forward to our first eggs. We’ve already thought of a couple of people to give some fresh eggs away for free to when they start coming in abundance. We’ve been told they start backing up quicker than you think. I think I will use a lot in my baking.

Hannah’s been sick for a week. She’s fine now but she had diarrhea and vomitting for nearly a week. It was a tough time for all of us. She was hungry all the time so she started waking again in the night, more so than when she was born. I had to change her whole outfit 2-3 times a day and she had many baths. She didn’t become dehydrated though surpisingly. I was worried about that.

Now why am I feeling sick? Morning sickness! Now why do they call it morning sickness when I feel it all day? Sounds silly to me! I still feel pretty sick as I speak but I am actually happy about it. Apparently many women who don’t experience nausea end up having a miscarriage. So, my body is doing what it needs to do. Why do women feel sick? Because the placenta is not fully supporting the baby yet and mommy’s hormones need to be in overdrive producing abundant amounts of estrogen. Once the placenta kicks in at about 12 weeks, my body won’t be having to produce it all, making me feel ill.

A couple of weeks ago we bought some baby chicks. Since we already have a hen house established in our barn, we thought, “Why not”? We bought two each of the following:

Rhode Island Red

Black Austalorp

Ancona

Barred Plymouth Rock

I’ve heard that once you eat your own eggs you cannot go back to the store bought. Apparently the yolks stand straight up and are a rich orange color. I’m excited to go get my eggs from my chickens every day. In another 4-6 months they should be producing.

The chicks are already a bit bigger as we’ve moved them into a big crate (they were flying out of their home here) and now my husband is building them a much larger temporary home out of some pallets and wood til we move them to the barn in a few weeks.

Last week I made my first homemade chicken pot pie. It was delicious! The only problem was I wish I had made just another cup or so of the delicious filling as it wasn’t the nice, round dome look that a pie should be. We loved it so much though, I think I will make another one next month. I can’t wait now to make a good, apple pie with the crust. I made Matthew a pie like dish with phyllo dough layered on top. He loved it. It had apples, currants, raisins and cranberries. Added was sugar, cinnamon, cardoman, cloves and some other spices I believe, mixed with a little butter. It was delicious. He’s been asking me for it again. I think I will try my hand at making my own pastry type phyllo dough since the regular pie dough turned out so beautifully. Our camera doesn’t do justice to the pictures though as it’s an old camera (10 years or so for digital). Hopefully sometime this year we’ll get a new one and we can take some really beautiful pictures of our kids, food and farming!

Here’s some pictures of Hannah’s cute face! She’s nearly 7 months old now. Though she’s still super sweet, she’s coming into a screaming mode like Elisabeth did at around this age. I’m not sure what it is that makes them want to scream and arch their back so much, but I think it’s kind of funny. She is so dramatic when she does it. You’de never know looking at that sweet, innocent face of hers!

I am discovering how much I love to cook! So, I will be putting more of my love for cooking on this blog in the future. Last night we had homemade shredded beef tacos. Beef cooked in tons of cumin, salt, dried jalepeno and that’s it! The tortillas we’ve been making for a couple of years now and we decided to make corn ones last night. They were fabulous. My favorite now! Filled with shredded beef, onion, tomato, guacamole, cheese, salsa and sour cream. My mouth is watering thinking about it now.

Okay, here’s what I was going to originally post. I went in the cupboard yesterday to get Elisabeth some Gold Fish crackers to snack on and I thought, what am I doing? I could make some homemade cheese crackers and they would be better for her. I would get to enjoy making them also. So, though I don’t have a picture of her cheese crackers (the first half of the batch), here’s the other half of the batch with the cheese base, rosemary and parmesan. They turned out wonderful. And Elisabeth loved her little crackers. I made hers much smaller and softer. I feel safe now about her not choking on them.